The more things change, the more they stay the same. Another year, another Call of Duty that somehow devolved further from its predecessor - less coherent, less confident, and less meaningful. 2025 is no different. Wth Black Ops 7, Treyarch and Activision leaned hard into the nostalgia bait as they dragged Raul Menendez and David Mason on a short lived, hallucinogen ridden campaign that failed to build on our characters past and failed to move any sort of plot forward. The campaign didn’t even pay off on any sort of nostalgia the marketing alluded to. The campaign failed to adhere to its own canon (looking at you Harper and Karma), and put spectacle over substance.
This seems like it should be in keeping with Call of Duty’s finest traditions. However, the spectacle of fighting through a bombed out Washington, defending Burger Town, or surviving a cartoonishly violent train crash is vastly different from fighting a giant sized bullet sponge in the form of a teammate masquerading as character development. This also draws a sharp contrast to the campaigns of old that had something to say. Even as recent as 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot balanced spectacle with hard hitting story beats and themes.
For a franchise that originally started to pay homage and honor the Greatest Generation and servicemembers, it is sad to see how far the franchise has drifted away from that concept. As a servicemember myself, I always wished that the franchise would return to a more venerable mindset in how it treats its characters and stories. Some glimpses of this are seen in CoD:WW2 and I even appreciate how MW2019 focuses on the greyscale that is warfare in the current era. Aside from these mentions I feel the campaign experience has become an amalgamation of Michael Bay styled action and hollow melodrama, which can be fine but only when accompanied by a compelling and meaningful plot. Seperately, multiplayer continues to drown itself in absurd skins and microtransactions that chase Fortnite’s shadow.
Criticism alone is easy. What’s far more important is articulating what Call of Duty could be if it took its legacy seriously. As a servicemember of over ten years, I still often myself a question the franchise once explored: what is the titular “call” in Call of Duty? What compels people to serve? And what happens to them after they answer that call? What can exploration look like in Call of Duty? Well...
Frist and foremost, the game would once again live up to the ESRB mature rating, not only in violence and action but tone and theme as well. There will need to be a concerted effort to maintain accuracy and realism. While there is an intense focus on humanity, we’ll incorporate the realism of World At War, authentic and gritty characters of Modern Warfare, and the fast paced, action packed set pieces mixed with close quarters, open field warfare, stealth missions; everything good we expect of a well-executed Call of Duty campaign.
The campaign starts with hearing civilian phone calls overlapping expressing fear, confusion, concern, and love. Fade from black to show a young adolescent boy - we’ll call him Richard - in a dimly lit room with a TV glow cast across his face. We hear dad on the phone checking in with colleagues. Obviously this is reminiscent of 9/11. While this event is NOT 9/11, it is meant to convey that things are no longer the same and nevever will be again. Multiple countries and their allies are about to be plunged into a state of war. We can keep this event ambiguous and not always completely clear as to what exactly happened despite being referenced - fog of war and all.
Cut to Richard with his younger brother walking through the woods playing war together, like we all did running around with sticks pretending to be guns. In an subversion of what we’ve come to expect, this is “the pit” mission, where we acclimate ourselves with the movement controls and endear ourselves to the player character.
Enter a guided and interactive cinematic in Richard’s senior year of high school where he encounters an Army Recruiter. This is where he enlists to become an Army Ranger in the current war initiated from the event in the opening. From here we go through the highlights of Richard’s training to explore more gameplay mechanics.
Now we start the hardcore missions. No specific plot, but we get a sense of Richard’s team, his values, and his aptitude for leadership. At this point Richard is a junior noncommissioned officer - a sergeant - he is a skilled Ranger, respected, courageous, and shows a lot of promise.
After a few missions of building up Richard, his team is ambushed and he is KILLED. As he bleeds out his vision blurs, we hear auditory flashbacks from his past - his recruiter, his parents’ reaction to him enlisting, expressions of love with an ex-girlfriend, the one that got away. Richard's vision fades from black only to see through blurred viision, an enemy Soldier turns his body over and searches his effects where he pulls out a diary.
Through this arc, we see the new, green soldier excited to serve, the pride of service one feels when their country is attacked, but also how easily convinced one can be to serve when tragedy strikes.
We take control of the enemy Soldier that just killed Richard, perusing the diary he just took from his felled foe - our former player character. We’ll call this new character Dimitri.
Dimitri is his platoon’s Platoon Sergeant. He is clearly older, say mid to late 30’s, and has been a soldier his whole adult life. He is a husband, a father, and while proud of his service, his primary concern is no longer completely service to his country but rather the burden of leadership and taking care of his men. Dimitri becomes close with his Platoon Leader, a foil to Richard. While on a routine mission, the platoon becomes engaged in combat and the Platoon Leader is suddenly killed by an enemy sniper. Dimitri is distraught, as he’s lost another Soldier.
Through these missions, we see that the vigor and pride of service, while present, fades over time and the primary concern is taking care of each other no matter what, and the pain of loss when losing a comrade.
We take control of the enemy sniper that just killed Dimitri’s Platoon Leader. Though not a uniformed soldier, our new character is a freedom fighter in a host country militia - we’ll call her Olivia. We provide overwatch to our comrades as they’re embroiled in combat with Dimitri’s platoon. We eventually look through the scope at Dimitri behind cover with his Platoon Leader’s body and as we’re about to pull the trigger, he removes his helmet and runs his hand through his hair and rests his head in his hand - is he crying? Praying?
Through these missions we get the feel of fighting for one’s country, their actual territory, not just on behalf of it - somewhat reminiscent of Modern Warfare 2’s Washington D.C. missions. Olivia is fighting for her home. These will be mostly stealth missions in a variety of terrains - urban, suburban, rural, etc. Olivia’s arc ends with the battlefield being pummeled by airstrikes from drones and AC 130s. We then take control of an Air Force Crew Chief.
The Crew Chief is responsible for coordinating the bombardment from the skies. This may be the shortest Arc, but it will focus on how the modern battlefield can be so detached from the ground-scale combat and how we can be desensitized from the cruelty via a screen.
These are just some of the arcs, but there is certainly more that can be explored - a general at the political level for an RTS mission, a CIA/MI6/FSB etc. agent/double agent for more open ended stealth missions like we saw in Black Ops Cold War and Black Ops 6. There are so many avenues and tropes that can explore unique themes that the franchise used to, and has yet to, explore. An anthological framework also provides a new and interesting stucture for the franchise.
The final cutscene is very similar to the first one with Richard but now we take control of his younger brother Lewis, now in his senior year. We see a stark contrast to the social environment with children. Though about to graduate, they ecpress more hard pointed political opinions on social discourse, the ongoing war, and anything in between mirroring our own society’s divisiveness. Lewis then walks past the cafeteria, the same one Richard did, when we see a somewhat familiar face. Lewis catches the eye of someone he saw long ago at his brother's funeral. Pan over to a now battle hardened face of a once young soldier who was in Richard’s squad, now an Army recruiter.
Fade to black. Title card. The Call of Duty.